Benjamin Schmid

Salzburg Cultural Association has a new director

Benjamin Schmid (in blue) succeeds Thomas Heißbauer.

(Bild: Bregenzer Festspiele / mathis.studio)

Violinist Benjamni Schmid succeeds Thomas Heißbauer: From the 2025/26 season, the 55-year-old will be musically responsible for the concert program.

The Austrian violinist Benjamin Schmid will be the new musical director of concerts at the Salzburg Cultural Association from the 2025/26 season, as announced by the President of the Salzburg Cultural Association, Hans Schinwald, in a press release on Tuesday. Schmid replaces Thomas Heißbauer, who took over the artistic direction from Elisabeth Fuchs in 2018 and is still responsible for the content of the program for the 2024/25 season.

Heißbauer has made his position available. He will continue to work for the Kulturvereinigung until the end of July 2024, it was reported. According to media reports, differences of opinion regarding the strategic direction were the reason for his resignation. Benjamin Schmid will take up his position in September 2024. The 2025/26 season will bear his signature for the first time.

"A person who fulfills all our wishes"
"In Benjamin Schmid, we have found someone who fulfills all of our wishes - and someone who has been closely associated with our institution for decades," explained Schinwald. After intensive deliberations on the future of the cultural association and the high demands for the musical direction of the extensive concert program, a series of exploratory talks were held. "We were looking for a name known to all Salzburg residents, who knows the local cultural scene inside out, as well as being a world-renowned artist and international networker," explained Schinwald.

The violinist made his debut at both the Salzburg Festival and the Salzburg Cultural Association in 1986. Since then, Schmid has been closely associated with the Kulturvereinigung and has been a regular guest at its concerts. He has performed as a soloist in more than 30 orchestral concerts. He has also performed on the world's most important stages with renowned orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich.

His international concert activities in around 3,000 live concerts have made Schmid one of the most important violinists of our time, according to the cultural association's press release. Fono Forum magazine recently voted his recording with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa as one of the "Ten Best Live CDs of All Time". As a violin virtuoso, Schmid is artistically at home both in the world of classical music and jazz.

Thanks to his decades of performing on stages, universities, juries and festivals, he has an extensive network in the international music scene. "As a Salzburg artist who will soon be able to look back on 40 years of continuous collaboration with the Salzburg Cultural Association, from his debut as an 18-year-old to the streaming concert in the Corona lockdown, it is a particular pleasure for me to now be able to act as artistic director and ambassador for this important Salzburg cultural institution," explained Schmid.